Drawing on decades of financial fraud crime fighting expertise, the company outlines a five-point plan to help secure the U.S. payments system from criminals
WASHINGTON, September 19 – Early Warning Services, LLC, founded to unite banks and credit unions in the fight against financial fraud, submitted a comment letter yesterday responding to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve Board, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Request for Information regarding potential actions to address payments fraud.
Early Warning, the company behind Zelle®, PazeSM and other identity and payments products, has spent 35 years at the forefront of fraud prevention and financial innovation. Trusted by thousands of financial institutions, community banks, credit unions, government agencies and private sector leaders, the company helped the U.S. financial sector screen $10.8 trillion in payments in 2024, stopping $3 billion in potential fraud.
“Criminals target people before a payment is ever sent – through scams, fake checks, social media posts, or other schemes – and the fight against payments fraud can’t be won in silos,” said Ben Chance, Head of Identity and Payments Risk at Early Warning. “Solving this challenge requires stronger collaboration across government, industry, and communities so we can work together to protect Americans. This includes financial institutions as well the social media companies, telecom providers, and email providers where these scams originate.”
In its submission, Early Warning lays out five essential pillars to address this problem:
- Establish a cross-sector task force comprising of financial institutions, payments providers, regulators, social media platforms, and telecommunication providers to coordinate proactive fraud prevention strategies.
- Standardize information sharing across stakeholders to enable faster detection and coordinated mitigation of emerging fraud tactics.
- Enhance sector-wide engagement and best practices across the complete scam lifecycle. This extends beyond traditional finance to include social media companies and telecommunication providers, who play critical roles in both enabling and disrupting scam channels.
- Increase law enforcement coordination, facilitating real-time information exchange and joint response protocols to disrupt and penalize fraud rings more effectively and swiftly.
- Continue investing in and scaling consumer education initiatives, equipping people with awareness, prevention tools, and trusted resources to recognize and avoid scams.
The recommendations contained in the comment letter acknowledge an undeniable reality: financial fraud is not the burden of financial institutions alone. From digital platforms where scams are born to the law enforcement agencies pursuing offenders, every sector has a responsibility. Meeting the challenge of increasingly complex threats requires a whole-of-society strategy – aligning government, technology and consumer education in defense of the U.S. payments system.
About Early Warning Services, LLC
Early Warning Services, LLC, a financial services technology leader, has been empowering and protecting consumers, small businesses, and the U.S. financial system with cutting-edge fraud and payment solutions for more than three decades. We are also the company behind Zelle®, and PazeSM, a wallet that reimagines e-commerce payments. Early Warning partners with more than 2,500 banks and credit unions to increase access to financial services and products, and protect financial transactions.